Perspectives: Appeals end 2, revive 4 wrongful death cases

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“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”

1. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, Scene 10 (1606)

“Superseding cause … an event which occurs after the initial act, leading to an accident is an offense that causes the accident [and] … relieves from responsibility the party whose acts started the series of events … since the original negligence is no longer the proximate cause.”

Law-Com (2024)

Wrongful death litigation often raises procedural issues that overshadow and sometimes preclude adjudication of the merits of the claims.

A sextet of cases decided earlier this year by the Minnesota Court of Appeals reflects a number of these issues. A pair of cases this spring resulted in affirmances of lower court decisions dispensing with the claims.

Four other lawsuits, however, turned out more favorably for the wrongful death claimants, whose lawsuits managed to survive that fate and lived on for remands.

 Dual dismissals

A lawsuit arising out of a fatal collision between a car and a motorcycle resulted in a dismissal after the trustee sued the wrong defendant, the trustee of the decedent’s surviving spouse, who had not yet been appointed as representative for the estate in Mattingly v. American Family Insurance, 6 N.W.3d 787 (Minn. App. April 22, 2024). Following the accident, which resulted in the deaths of two people, a passenger in the automobile and the other on a motorcycle, the trustee brought an action in Washington County District Court on behalf of the automobile passenger against the spouse of the vehicle driver to pursue a wrongful death claim on behalf of herself, as surviving spouse, and his next of kin.

After the three-year statute of limitations under Minn. Stat. § 573.02 expired, the designated “trustee” moved to dismiss on grounds that a wrongful death claim can be asserted only against the personal representative of the estate and that she was only appointed trustee to commence the wrongful death action for herself and the driver’s next of kin, but was not appointed “personal representative” of the driver’s estate.

The Washington County District Court agreed and dismissed the lawsuit.

The appellate court affirmed because under the wrongful death statute, Minn. Stat. § 573.01 a claim against a decedent must be brought against the personal representative of the decedent’s estate, and the failure to do so requires that a lawsuit “must be dismissed.”

Although the defendant spouse in this case had been appointed trustee to pursue an action on behalf of the decedent’s estate, she was not appointed personal representative for purposes of being sued, and the statute “contains no language authorizing a wrongful death trustee to defend against a personal injury accident “attributable to the alleged tortious conduct of the deceased person.”

While the statute authorizes a wrongful death trustee procedural “to assert claims on behalf of the decedent’s surviving spouse and next of kin,” it does not authorize the wrongful death trustee to defend claims against the deceased person’s estate. Since the lawsuit alleges that the decedent driver was “negligent,” it “must be brought against the personal representative [of] his estate. Because this action was commenced against his surviving spouse, “who was not appointed personal representative” of the estate, it was not brought against the proper defendant and the trial court properly dismissed it.

A wrongful death action against a pair of Minneapolis police officers and the city brought by the trustee for the next of kin for the decedent also was dismissed because of official immunity in Gant v. Ledman, 2024 WL 242722327 (Minn. App. May 28, 2024)(nonprecedential). The case dated back to a fatal shooting on Thanksgiving Day of 2019 of a woman by the father of her two children. The mother’s trustee sued two police officers who were dispatched to the scene where the incident occurred but were unable to prevent the woman from being killed by her children’s father.

After arriving the officers left the scene to check on a stolen vehicle report, and by the time they returned, the murder had occurred inside the home, which precipitated a claim for negligence on their part resulting in the wrongful death of the woman occupant.

The Hennepin County District Court dismissed the lawsuit on grounds of the officers’ official immunity due to their “discretionary” conduct and the city, therefore, was not vicariously liable, resulting in a dismissal of the lawsuit by the Hennepin County District Court.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s determination that official immunity bars the claims against the officers was correct because the lawsuit was based on “their performance of duties [arising] … from their exercise of independent discretionary judgment.” The officers’ action at the scene of the incident reflected the exercise of “discretionary duties,” rather than “ministerial ones,” which creates “official immunity” barring liability. The contention that the officers should have forced their way into the home to prevent the shooting, rather than waiting outside, was rejected because the officers had “no constitutional authority to exercise that discretion” under the Fourth Amendment in the absence of “exigent circumstances” justifying them to do so.

Arriving at the house, the officers encountered a “dark and quiet house, [and] … knocking, got no response.” Under these circumstances, there was no “exigency that justified … the officers to forcibly enter, which lacks support in any case law … [and] has no legal or logical support.”

Because the two police officers who were dispatched to the scene are entitled to official immunity, the city is consequently entitled to vicarious official immunity, warranting dismissal of the lawsuit.

Prevailing pair

But a pair of wrongful death claimants prevailed in a wrongful death lawsuit in which a defense verdict was reversed on grounds of erroneous instruction on superseding cause in Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., 2024 WL 2266939 (Minn. App. May 20, 2024)(nonprecedential). The suit arose out of an attack on a dance floor at a nightclub in St. Cloud, which was precipitated by numerous individuals who had been fighting, removed from the premises by security, and then allowed to return, where they stabbed and killed one of the men with whom they had been fighting with earlier in the evening.

A wrongful death lawsuit was brought in Stearns County District Court against the assailants and the facility for failure of security personnel to prevent the attack or intervene before it turned fatal. The charge to the jury, which found for the defendant nightclub, instructed it to consider whether liability was extinguished because of “superseding cause.” Its verdict for the nightclub preceded denial by the trial judge at a new trial due to the superseding jury instruction.

The trustee appealed to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court abused its discretion by giving the superseding cause instruction, which “created confusion and prejudiced” the trustee claimant. A jury instruction regarding foreseeability and the heightened duty of an innkeeper was combined with instructions on direct cause and superseding cause that “provide two different definitions of direct cause.”

Confusion ensued because of the instruction to the jury on direct cause, preceded the definition of superseding cause to show when a cause is “not a direct cause,” coupled with an instruction on the “elements of superseding cause.” Reversal is warranted because these instructions “may have led a jury to apply the wrong definition to direct cause” on the verdict form.

The confusion was reflected in the inconsistency of the jury’s determination that the assault was “foreseeable” to invoke liability under the under the innkeeper’s duty doctrine, while answering “no” to a question whether the negligence of the hospitality facility constituted a “direct cause” of the death. Due to the likelihood that the “inclusion of the superseding cause instruction” prejudiced the trustee’s claim, the case was reversed and remanded for a new trial.

The jury’s “zero damages” verdict also was subject to retrial. Because the “superseding cause” instruction was improper, a new trial must encompass the damages owed by the facility “should it be found liable.”

A dissent by Judge Randall Slieter would have affirmed the defense verdict on grounds that the trial court properly instructed the jury on comparative fault and that the superseding cause instruction was not erroneous.

Trustee tussle

 A wrongful death medical malpractice and negligent supervision case was allowed to proceed against a South St. Paul elder care facility in Pryzbilla v. Vista Prairie at River Heights, LLC, 2024 WL 1251635 (Minn. App. March 25, 2024)(nonprecedential). The Dakota County District Court denied a motion to dismiss due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction grounded on improper appointment of a stepchild as a trustee, who was not a statutorily entitled next-of-kin or “blood relative,” under Minn. Stat. § 753.02, subd. 3, § 524.2-103.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the defense premise for dismissal but nonetheless affirmed, noting that consent forms signed by two granddaughters who are next-of-kin were attached to the petition for appointment by the stepdaughter. These consent forms showed that they “effectively petitioned” for the appointment.

Because there is “little doubt” that the next-of-kin “knowingly approved the petition to appoint [the stepdaughter] as trustee,” the trial court properly “exercised its discretion” in making the appointment and correctly refused to dismiss the proceeding.

Concurrent cases

 A medical malpractice claimant also prevailed in one of two simultaneously issued rulings in Daulton v. ISM Treatment Center, 2 N.W.3d 331 (Minn. Jan. 16, 2024). The Hennepin County District Court dismissed the lawsuit brought against a health care provider arising out of the suicide of the trustee’s son who had been treated there for mental-emotional issues. The dismissal was due to failure to timely submit an expert-review affidavit accompanying the lawsuit until after the three-year statute of limitations had expired under Minn. Stat. § 145.682, subd. 2.

But the Court of Appeals revived the suit on grounds that the requisite affidavit was served within the 60-day “safe harbor” period under § 145.682, subd. 6(a), following a demand for the document. The facility’s motion to dismiss triggered the 60-day period, and even though the affidavit was not submitted within the three-year limitations period, it fell within the 60-day extended safety valve.

The filing of an affidavit indicating there has been expert review before commencement of a malpractice case is “not jurisdictional.” Therefore, the filing after the limitations period expired was not fatal to preserving the wrongful death lawsuit.

A trustee was successful in a concurrently decided appeal in a fatal motor vehicle accident a few months earlier in Duoth v. Wood, 2024 WL 159127 (Minn. App. Jan. 16, 2024)(nonprecedential). The Benton County District Court granted summary judgment against the wrongful death trustee of her decedent son who was killed when struck by an alleged negligent driver while the decedent walking on or near a roadway on Highway 23.

The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that disputed fact issues existed regarding the decedent’s location at the time he was struck. The trial court’s determination that “no evidence” supported the claim that he was on the shoulder of the road, other than on the highway, was contradicted by “favorable” deposition testimony for the wrongful death claimant.

Even if the decedent was on the road, there remains a fact issue whether the collision was “preventable” by the driver who struck him. Therefore, summary judgment was improper and the case was remanded for trial.

These cases reflect difficult procedural issues that arise in wrongful death cases in Minnesota, whose resolution can be fatal or keep the lawsuits alive.

PERSPECTIVES POINTERS

Death rates per 100,000 people

Unites States: 748

Mississippi: 985

South Dakota: 760

Iowa: 752

Wisconsin: 745

North Dakota: 723

Minnesota: 670

Hawaii: 574

Marshall H. Tanick is an attorney with the Twin Cities law firm of Meyer Njus Tanick, PA.

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